On Friday night, members of the University’s Jewish community gathered in the Luria rooms of the Hassenfeld Conference Center after Hillel’s Shabbat dinner to listen to Interim University President Lisa Lynch lead the first Oneg Shabbat of the academic year.

Rabbi Elyse Winick ’86, the University’s Jewish chaplain, began the event by discussing that week’s Torah reading, quoting the Torah portion in Hebrew and translating it into English.

Lynch then discussed two of the books she read over the summer, “Brandeis University—Chapter of its Founding,” written in 1951 by Brandeis co-founder Israel Goldstein and “Brandeis University: A Host at Last,” written in 1995 by founding University president Abram Sachar.

“At some stage in your life, you should read this book,” Lynch said of Sachar’s book. “This is a really interesting book because it’s going to give you a perspective on your university that you might not have had.”

Transitioning into a discussion on the University’s founding, Lynch addressed what she referred to as the “seeming paradox” at Brandeis, namely that “we are a Jewish-founded university that is nonsectarian.”

As someone who was raised in the Catholic faith and is no longer practicing, Lynch said she found the University’s religious background and tradition of social justice activism particularly fascinating.

“When I came to Brandeis—and I was very much drawn to this University because of the excellence of the academics, the reputation of the university, the focus on social justice—I felt a deep and profound connection with those same traditions.”

Lynch delved into the background of how the University was founded, going back to the committees of Jewish intellectuals stationed in New York and Boston who first conceived of a Jewish-founded university.

Addressing Sachar and Goldstein’s desire to found a university in a manner similar to other religiously-founded schools, Lynch said, “You have this sort of aspiration and desire to say, ‘well, the Jewish community should do the same thing as these other institutions, and this is part of showing that we have arrived, that we are part of the same standing and status in society and we can do this as well.’”

Though the University had only 107 students and 13 faculty members when Sachar became president in 1948, Lynch said the University’s founding developed a precedent for achievement that continues today.

“The University has from its inception—and I would argue it continues today—to have also this requirement that we are an influential center of Jewish learning and a communal responsibility,” she said.

Lynch then cited the Near Eastern and Jewish Studies department and Hornstein programs as evidence of the University’s “preparing this next generation of leadership in social services.”

After Lynch spoke, the Oneg moved into a brief question-and-answer session. After a student asked her what had shocked her most during her eight years at the University, Lynch told a story about how she was amazed when, she said, professors and administrators were willing to take a pay cut in order to maintain staff jobs and salaries during the 2008 recession. She noted this sacrifice reinforced the University’s value of “thinking of others before self.”

Lynch also touched briefly on the sustainability initiatives that she wants to focus on during her time as interim president.

“One of the things that we can do [during this interim presidency] … is to focus on what we’re doing in respect to our carbon footprint and our sustainability on this campus,” she said.

“We are so wasteful with our materials. We should be doing a much better job in respect to how we are using our natural resources.”

The University’s “Turn It Off” days from this past summer, she said, “lowered our energy consumption by 28% on those days.”

Finally, Lynch discussed the significance of the next University president’s religion.

“I’d like to think that being Jewish is not a litmus test about who the next president is going to be at Brandeis. I think it’s highly likely that the next president is probably going to be Jewish, but I think what’s most important is how someone values the roots and the founding and the aspirations of this University,” she said.